The go-for-broke performances help make all this paranormal activity too much fun to care.

Sheridan, so good in "Mud" with Matthew McConaughey, excels here as a vulnerable sapling.

It's "National Lampoon's Family Vacation" with soul.

Caine has never been better, which is saying something. He puts a human face on a tragic era of history in a film that ranks with the year's finest.

Not since Julie Andrews rode an umbrella to glory in Mary Poppins has Disney given us such a real-life doll (Amy Adams).

It's stupid. It's in bad taste. It impossible. I know all that. Look, Quentin Tarantino killed Hitler in "Inglourious Basterds" and the neo-Nazis stayed quiet. It's a farce, people.

Jarmusch, as ever, has the power to sneak up on you. He's a spellbinder. The same goes for his movie.

Ignore the tell and focus on the show, spectacular in every sense.

Writer-director Gurinder Chadha juggles all the angles with flair and fairness. Like Nagra and Knightley, the movie is a sweetheart.

All this is conveyed in the remarkable performance of Ronan, an Oscar nominee for Atonement. She and Tucci -- magnificent as a man of uncontrollable impulses -- help Jackson cut a path to a humanity that supersedes life and death.

Damon is extraordinary. He's heartfelt performance has a tough core of intelligence and wit.

The film never musters the intimate feel the gifted director brought to such early films as "Raise the Red Dragon" and "Ju Dou." You cheer his accomplishment in Hero without ever feeling close to it.

This spellbinder about a politician in free fall would be hilarious if it weren't so agonizingly true. OK, it's still pretty funny because Anthony Weiner — the subject of this documentary — can't stop shooting himself in the foot.

Baker makes the strongest impression not just with photography on the surf and underneath it – kudos to "water cinematographer" Rick Rifici – but through understanding how surfing allows these boys to aspire as well as dare.

Hero heads for the high ground of the dark, sorrowful comedies of Preston Sturges (Hail the Conquering Hero) and Frank Capra (Meet John Doe). Credit the film then for having a goal, even though it loses sight of it with disturbing rapidity.

Mullan errs by making all the sisters dragon ladies. Still, the film gets to you; it's a powerhouse.

It's gripping psychodrama -- just don't confuse Nixon with history. The revelation that comes with unbiased research remains a Stone's throw away.

A crowd pleaser that spices a tired formula with genuine feeling.

What keeps Adrift from feeling like just a travelogue tacked on to a tragi-sploitive star vehicle is, ironically enough, its star. Shailene Woodley has always been great when it comes to bringing the radiance – she's like a sunbeam made sentient – and even better when she can use that California Dreamin' glow semi-subversively a la "The Spectacular Now" or "The Descendents."

Paris Is Burning catches the sadly hollow spectacle with acuity, wit and intelligence.

LaGravenese may be unsteady at the helm, but his film insinuates like a torch song that keeps messing with your head.

It's a beast of a movie, an emotional roller coaster that threatens to go off the rails, and does. But Cianfrance, working from a scrappy script he wrote with Ben Coccio and Darius Marder, takes you on a hell of a ride.

Araki constructs the hot-blooded Kaboom as a high-wire act without a safety net. Go with it.

Mortensen and Isaac, expertly exchanging the faces of loyalty and betrayal, are both outstanding. Is the film too old-school for short attention spans? Maybe. Rest assured that Amini's shuddery endgame is well worth the wait.

This gifted clown has found the right vehicle for his souped-up silliness. Carrey is the ultimate party dude, and like the masked man says, this party is smokin'.

Schumacher's method is to use a lighter touch, to stay closer to the cartoon that Bob Kane created for DC Comics in 1939 and to temper Burton's nightmare world with an accessible, brightly colored TV palette.

Bateman doesn't make a false move, and a stellar Charlize Theron springs her own bolts from the blue as Ray's wife. As for Smith, he's on fire. There's nothing like a star shining on his highest beams. You follow him anywhere.

P.S., adapted from Helen Schulman's novel, is Linney's show, and she makes it hilarious and haunting.

Whenever Zucker stops piling on battle scenes as if he were directing Braveheart, his film casts a romantic spell.

The movie has a tossed-off, caught-on-the-fly exuberance that works like a charm.

Stick with it for Miller’s gutsy tour de force and the kick of watching Buscemi, as actor and filmmaker, turn an experiment into a mesmerizing battle of wills.

The plot ambles along, and Denzel is the essence of laid-back professionalism as he deals with corrupt officials, grisly crimes, lustful housewives, and his own divided loyalties. It's an odd, captivating little movie.

The Meddler belongs to Sarandon, a famously no-bull actress who digs in deep, showing us how moms aren't one thing, they're all things. How else can they make you laugh from love and cry from crazy? The Meddler knows how. Listen up.

In The Water Diviner, Crowe strives to strike a universal chord about the futility of war. Simplistic? Maybe. But in crafting a film about the pain a parent feels after losing a child in battle, Crowe transcends borders and politics. It's not war being honored here, it's sacrifice and inconsolable loss. I'd call that a substantial achievement.

There's no way to take your eyes off it.

Another Earth offers imagination and provocation to spare.

The performances are uniformly terrific, finding the specific details that create a universal truth.

Shot hand-held with a poet's eye by Rodrigo Prieto, the film is relentless but as riveting as the world a remarkable actor lets us see through Uxbal's eyes. Bravo, Bardem.

It's a perversely comic movie ride into the wild blue of crime and punishment.

You'll end up entertained if you forgive the cliches and let Petersen grab you with the visuals.

Grand Canyon is most gripping when Kasdan shows people waking up to the world and finding that they need more than bromides.

Terminator Genisys fires on all action cylinders when director Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World) follows the model James Cameron set in the first two films, still the glory of the series.

The latest film franchise culled from Marvel's comic-book universe packs a ton of fun into a teeny package. Its low-key charm helps glide us over trouble spots in tone and pacing.

The heart of Jackass - the adolescent drive to bash body and soul into the symbolic brick wall of maturity - remains pure.

Just know that Famuyiwa keeps the action spinning with vibrant speed and rare sensitivity. He's made a comedy of social expectation that plays like an exhilarating gift.

The All-American imagery, coexisting with occasional shots of swastikas and socially-sanctioned cruelty, give it the feel of a surreal, funny fever dream about national purpose gone horribly awry.

It's Sagnier, a young Bardot, who lifts the movie, and Rampling, 58, who gives it nuance, not to mention a nude scene that shows off a body Demi Moore would envy. These two make it seductive fun to be fooled.

This riveting film qualifies as the anti-crowd-pleaser -- but Penn makes it unthinkable to turn away.

Brice, who made an impressive thriller debut with 2014's "Creep," has a knack for getting the most out of four people talking.

Battle of the Sexes is not an overtly political movie; it's a blast about two tennis champions going over the top to make a point.

Based on a play by Athol Fugard, Tsotsi is South Africa's entry in this year's Oscar race for Best Foreign-Language Film. This remarkable movie means to shake you, and boy does it ever.

Near the end of this smart, speedy romantic farce, the comic engine hits a wall and sputters. Until then, this Coen brothers film -- easily their silliest -- is fueled by a screwball fizz that keeps the laughs popping.

Guilty-pleasure movies should not be underestimated. I had a scary-fun-house blast at Zombieland, in which studly Woody Harrelson, nerdy Jesse Eisenberg, sexy Emma Stone and sunshiny Abigail Breslin roam a near-dead world kicking zombie ass.

Branching out in a bold new direction, Stallone is quietly devastating. James Mangold has directed Cop Land from his own ardent, audacious script, and despite some draggy, overdeliberate moments, it's the strongest piece of material to come Stallone's way since he invented himself as Rocky 21 years ago.

A warmly hilarious movie about family members and their secret hearts.

The new Seven isn't aiming for cinema immortality. It's two hours of hardcore, shoot-em-up pow and it's entertaining as hell.

It's a kick to watch Denzel Washington do a movie just for the hot, sexy fun of it.

Goat means to shake you, and does it ever.

Sally Hawkins is just plain irresistible in this funny, touching and vital salute to women in the work force.

For anyone professing true movie love, there's no resisting it.

Green Room is way more than crass exploitation. It's a B movie with an art-house core.

In his uniquely funny and unexpectedly tender movie, Stiller takes us on a personal journey of lingering resonance.

Stoker is Park's darkly funny, deliciously depraved riff on Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt."

Jarmusch makes it a feast that plays like a haunting concept album.

The movie stays alert to the dreams and disappointments of four average people on an emotional roller coaster. It's a sublimely acted movie, hilarious and heartfelt.

It's a revamped Cinderella story with power as the aphrodisiac, and Douglas and Bening play it to the classy hilt. The courtship scenes in the film's lighter, more deft first half have the bounce of a moonstruck fable.

What this Robin Hood lacks in fun it makes up for in epic sweep.

When Boseman shows us Brown doing his thing onstage, the movie comes alive.

Kent will have you climbing the walls simply by plumbing the violence of the mind. Brace yourself.

May lack the mythic pow of the 1984 original and the visionary thrill of T2, but it's a potent popcorn movie that digs in its hooks and doesn't let go until an ending that ODs on apocalyptic hoo-ha.

What kind of a movie takes place entirely on one screwed-up teen's computer screen? That would be Unfriended, a creep-you-out experiment in terror that damn near pulls off every trick up its cyber sleeve.

Shot in the West Bank, the film radiates authenticity. Even when he plays the action like a thriller, Abu-Assad is in search of a deeper truth.

This is ambitious, challenging filmmaking, elevated by Franco's compassion and Haze's revelatory acting. OK, the film trips up on its attempt to lace tragedy with gallows humor. But Franco is out there trying something, balancing literature and cinema in a tightrope act that is never less than exciting to watch.

Allen has crafted a suspenseful mind-teaser that might feel too much like an intellectual exercise if Phoenix and Stone didn't infuse it with raw humanity. The conceptual bubble Allen creates in Irrational Man is potent provocation built to keep you up nights.

In Guncrazy, Davis delivers pow entertainment with a twist: It matters.

Whedon, without skimping on the tale’s tragic undercurrents, has crafted an irresistible blend of mirth and malice.

Don't think you can take another Hollywood version of Sherlock Holmes? Snap out of it. Apologies to Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch, but what Ian McKellen does with Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective in Mr. Holmes is nothing short of magnificent.

You will laugh yourself silly.

The result is an uncommon intimacy, the kind you find in a Judy Blume novel. Her grit and grace are all over this heartfelt adventure of a movie. She gives it a spirit that soars.

John waters and Kathleen Turner bring out the sicko best in each other in Serial Mom. It’s a killingly funny spoof of crime and nonpunishment that couldn’t have come at a better time for us or them.

Romantic yearning hasn't looked this sexy onscreen in years.

Gerwig is the mistress of all things funny and fierce, and her byplay with Kirke (Gone Girl) is killer. You won't know what hit you.

If you've had it with all that feel-good holiday sludge, hook up with the combustibly nasty Bad Santa. It could become a Christmas perennial for Scrooges of all ages.

It's impossible to quantify what it takes to be a quality director – but damn, you know it when you see it. And you'll see it clear and strong in Paint It Black, a staggeringly impressive feature directing debut for actress Amber Tamblyn.

Douglas never makes a false move, delivering a tour de force in human weakness.

Screenwriters Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel, in an auspicious directing debut, are attempting to tackle emotional areas that can't be glibly resolved. Sure, they trip up a few times. But it's exhilarating watching them aim high.

For special effects alone, there's no problem: They're spectacular. And there's no faulting Mark Rylance, a newly-minted Oscar winner for Spielberg's Bridge of Spies, whose motion-capture performance as a 24-foot giant is both subtly nuanced and truly monumental.

In Darkness is an agonizing experience, especially when Jews are publicly humiliated in the streets and a driving rainstorm nearly drowns those cowering in the depths. Holland means to shake you. In Darkness has the power to haunt will haunt your dreams.

A hand-me-down cast? Far from it. Masterson and Stoltz possess talent and charm to spare... Wonderful aspires to be little more than the hot-and- happening teen flick of the moment. At that it succeeds.

The best of what's onscreen is a mesmerizing mind-teaser.

Doing his own singing (an uncanny imitation), Spacey is a marvel.

What sounds like undiluted melodrama with the hounds forever nipping at Ewa's heels is transformed by Gray into a mesmerizing meditation on the broken American promise.

Want your skin to crawl? This one's for you.

Funny as hell.

The plot is flimsy, but director Mark Waters (Freaky Friday) trusts Fey's tart dialogue to carry the day. Wise man. Fey subverts formula to find comic gold. She's a brash new voice in movie comedy. Boy, do we need her now.

Judge is in the business of social satire, and his laughs can sting, but his movie is a comic salute to free enterprise. And, boy, do we need it now.

A hack would have turned Frank and Sam into overnight sensations. Instead, the writer-director recognizes the compromises that reality forces on dreams – and this soft breeze of a movie emerges as a scrappy surprise that's hard to shrug off.

Smith wins our hearts without losing his dignity, as Chris suits up for success by day and fights off despair by night. The role needs gravity, smarts, charm, humor and a soul that's not synthetic. Smith brings it. He's the real deal.